Series: The Brothers of Wolf Isle, #3
Traits & Tropes: love triangle; road trip
Publication Date: 08.22.22
Genre/Setting: Historical; Medieval; Gloucester, England/Scotland, 1547
Heat Level: 1
Rating: 2.5/5
Callum Macquarie wants nothing more than to return to his beloved home in the Highlands, but first he must endure an inadequately defended English castle for however long it takes to convince lovely Anna Montgomerie and her sister, Dora, to return with him and be reunited with their elder sister. He has an oath to keep and that means getting them home safely and before the pirate Jandeau learns where they are. Unfortunately, Anna has no desire to ever return to Scotland and declares herself to be not in need of rescue.
Anna isn’t interested in Callum or any oath he might’ve made. She’s unconcerned for any dangers and has no intention to return to Scotland after the way she left it. She’d much prefer to make a new life for herself in England and she has a plan to make that happen if the handsome highlander would just stay out of her way.
This was not the book I’d expected for lighthearted, joking, smiling Callum and it didn’t have quite the romance or the fast-paced, suspenseful edge of the other books in the series. Perhaps the English setting is some of what threw this one a little off for me, and Anna, the heroine, didn't help either. She came off as being very peevish, and unnecessarily rude to Callum when he was merely trying to help. She was very immature in her dealings with him, for instance stomping on his foot twice within the first few chapters as her preferred method of expressing her displeasure, as if she were taking out her resentment toward her older sister on him. It was also bizarre to me that she describes having fantasized about Callum’s brother, Beck, coming to take her away. Especially when combined with her rudeness toward Callum, this watered down any romance that was burgeoning between them, and that’s before we even bring in Baron Elias Grigg, the true third corner of this bizarre love triangle.
The whole storyline with Elias offering to marry Anna and give her and her sister lives of wealth and privilege was pretty flimsy and made no sense given that they had nothing to bring to the marriage themselves and there was clearly no incentive for him to marry someone with no wealth or title. The fact that Anna couldn’t see this made her intelligence seem questionable and the fact that she entertained the idea of a romantic attraction to Elias, even for a short time, made it hard to believe she’d so quickly transferred her affections to Callum. This undermined the love connection between Callum and Anna for me, a connection that was already flimsy because Anna is nothing but mean to Callum and about the country that he loves for much of the book. Yet, somehow Callum is telling Anna that she’s wonderful during this time and I was left wondering what he saw and questioning his intelligence too. The competitiveness between Callum and Elias was just a bit weird and the humor that I think it was meant to infuse was lost on me. In fact, I found more humor in the villains as they bumbled about ineptly. Much of the book just seemed like a way to make a spectacle of Callum as the wild Highlander with quite a bit of inane conversation thrown in and Anna quite obviously trusting where she shouldn’t and realizing her mistake when it was nearly too late.
By the time she came around and realized how great Callum was and how much she wanted to be with and create a home with him, it was a bit too late for me to be fully convinced of their deep love. I still have high hopes for the remaining brothers’ stories, but this one felt rushed, with a scattered and rather flimsy plot that just didn’t quite work for me.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
https://www.bookbub.com/reviews/4245193775
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5024726834
Comments
Post a Comment